Timisoara - the third largest city in Romania and the closest to the Serbian border. And it was strange to discover that having a common border Romania and Serbia are not connected to each other via transportation. Timisoara and Belgrade - that's two major cities on both sides of the border, between paved highway. But no buses between the two. Between Timisoara and Belgrade laid railroad, but it is followed by a train just to the border, to the town of Vrsac, the ticket costs 23 lei (5.5 euros). Trains scheduled everyday, twice a day – in the early morning at and daytime train. Once you are in a town of Vrsac you can take either train or bus that will take you to Belgrade. Takes about 2 hours.
The distance between the two cities is only 150 km that would take about 2 hours by car. So hitchhike all the way to Belgrade didn’t sound as a bad idea.
Adventure started from Bulevardul Regele Ferdinand I, right across the street from Catedrala Mitropolitana din Timisoara Trei Ierarhi. Catching a bus number 33 (A33) and going till the end of the line was easy and free ride ( lucky!) No one was there to check tickets nor we didn’t find where to buy tickets. Bus have its root until the high way that we had to walk for 15 minutes as there were no place for stop. Prepared with the cardboard with the sign “SRB” we got to the first gas station and stopped for hitchhike. Doing it with a cardboard seemed as a not a good idea because as soon as we drop it down we got a ride within 5 minutes. Guys in car explained us that its better to have the sign with “Belgrade” written on it instead of SRB. They took as all the way to the road that turns to town Resita. It has little café where we had to sit down and write our new cardboard with “Belgrade” on it as we was told.
Continued hitchhiking. And again there was no luck until we dropped down our Belgrade sign and voila! Got a car within 5 minutes again!
The guy was going all the way to the Denta. Denta is a bit off the road E70.. As the road seemed pretty empty and not many cars was going this way we decided that to move forward is a better idea than not moving at all.
Denta is pretty small town and at first seems as a ghost city. Took us about 20 minutes to cross denta where we tried to find information about busses that might go to Vrsac. And found out that there are no busses that crossing the border. But could take us to Maravita. The ride cost 5 lei and takes about 15 minns.
Bus drops you in very small village that seemed as a dead place. Map was showing us that it is 5 km left to the border and we began to walk. Walking and eating plums. As the plum trees growing along the road.For the last 30 minutes that we walked we saw maybe only 3 cars which didn’t stop for us. But another 10 minutes walk and luck was on our side. We got a ride way up to Vrsac to the bus station. Where we found out that the bus to Belgrade leaves in 40 minutes. And cost only 6 Euro.
In total our journey took about 5-6 hours to get from Timisoara to Belgrade and 7 euro for a person.
Comparing to the train/bus route with its stopover in Vrsac it would take us from 8 to 14 hours and about 20 euros.
So it was a good alternative and great adventure!
Have you hitchhiked before?